Accounting professor and private legal practitioner lawyer Kwaku Asare aka Kwaku Azar is proposing a galamsey court to deal with persons arrested for engaging in illegal mining.
The lawyer is an opinion said, galamsey operators should not be prosecuted, in our normal courts.
He is also advocating for the training of special prosecutors on galamsey activities, so they would be able to prosecute such cases.
”To stop galamsey, as with most organized crimes, one must cut the head of the snake. That means the most important KPI is the number of snakeheads, not excavators, that we burn.
This solution is a metaphor for going after the big people who fund and benefit most from the criminal operations. These are the masterminds, financiers and engines of the criminal enterprise.
To do so, we require the training and appointment of galamsey prosecutors to prosecute in special galamsey courts, not the “normal” courts, like the one handling the Opuni trial, which has been ongoing since 2018.
In the GOGO galamsey court, no trial will last longer than 4 weeks. There will be no interlocutory appeals,” he opined.
Read his opinion below (unedited)
To stop galamsay, as with most organized crimes, one must cut the head of the snake. That means the most important KPI is the number of snake heads, not excavators, that we burn.
This solution is a metaphor for going after the big people who fund and benefit most from the criminal operations. These are the masterminds, financiers and engines of the criminal enterprise.
To do so, we require the training and appointment of galamsay prosecutors to prosecute in special galamsay courts, not the “normal” courts, like the one handling the Opuni trial, which has been ongoing since 2018.
In the GOGO galamsay court, no trial will last longer than 4 weeks. There will be no interlocutory appeals.
Cutting the head of the snake will not only be about possible incarcerations to terms, no less than 25 years, but also it will mean confiscation and forfeiture of the perpetrators’ assets whether or not they are galamsey-related.
We must also understand that galamsayers operate a complex network. Gold is not sold in Atiwa or Birim or on the streets of Shiashie. Gold is exported and it depends on bureaucrats and public officers to get from Atiwa to Overseas.
It is the whole network that has to be disrupted and burnt.
As for the Chinese and other foreigners who play a part, GOGO will teach them a lesson that they will never forget as long as they serve their prison terms.
But incarceration of the big men will not be enough. GOGO understands that most small men caught in these operations are not interested in polluting waters. They just need jobs.
That means a renewed emphasis on opportunities in the agroforestry, ecotourism and construction industries aimed at providing jobs to the displaced small men.
Here, COVET can come in handy to provide short term vocational skills to these small men that are needed in these sustainable industries.
And here is where forfeited excavators can also be utilized. It is bugabuga to burn excavators that can actually be put to good use in lawful construction work, including dredging activities.
Excavators are not the problem. They are part of the solution.
SALL is the cardinal sin of the 8th Parliament.
Da Yie!
By: Rainbowradioonline.com